Founders Black Rye

Brewed by Founders Brewing Company
Style: Specialty Grain
Grand Rapids, Michigan USA

Draught. Pours bold mahogany with creamy beige head. The aroma is full of grapefruit hops with some sort of earthy undercurrent. The flavor is grapefruit, cedar, earth, and some woody caramel hints. The rye comes out as it gets nearer room temperature. Interesting.

Pleasant, mild rye ale...nice and dark in body, with a full, frothy head. The carbonation is a little bit too biting, and big-bubbled, and not as smooth as I would have liked. Some coffee in the finish, which is also quite dry. Mild maltyiness, and pretty good.

Very dark brown with huge, foamy off-white head - very woody hop aroma, with background caramel malt - dry dry, mineral qualities - quite hoppy and piney - the rye is very evident and tasty - balancing background chocolatey malt sweetness - a fine rye ale.

Pours an opaque black with a light tan head. The aroma holds both a lot of coffee and dark chocolate backed with a bit of vanilla and cream. The flavor also holds a good amount of coffee and chocolate along with vanilla and hazelnut. It’s a very nutty, toasty beer, and while I can kind of taste some bitterness from the hops, it’s not too overpowering...a very light citrus element is added but not a whole lot more than that. Fairly light in body, but not too thin by any means and goes from a nice roasted malt over the tounge to a dry bitter finish. Nice brew overall.

Bottle from Riley’s in Madison. Pours very black and I have to admit,I was expecting more of a roasted malt,grainy taste but was pleasantly surprised to taste all those hops.

Black. Small, off white head. Nose of roasty bittersweet chocolate, coffee, subtle hops and grains. Same flavor with more hops and more roastiness. Flavor is balanced. Medium body is balanced. Solid brew, very drinkable.

In the bottle. Black in color with a thick dark tan head. Has a chocolate malt and espresso coffee aroma. This beer has a big palate. It’s very mouth coating. The flavor is milky sour at first, then a strong roasted coffee flavor emerges. The flavor finishes with a rye whiskey burn. There’s a solid hop bitterness at the finish resulting in a mouth dryness that lasts a long time, teasing you. It also has a backbone chocolate milk sweetness that really isn’t too sweet at all. This is a great beer. I’d call it a Rye Porter, not merely an "ale" as listed above.

Bottled, thanks heemer77. Dark brownish ruby colour, mediumsized brown foamish bubbly head. Mainly roasted malts in aroma, same in flavour. So why is this an ale? It could as well be a porter, as I have had stuff called porter which has been crappier than this. A bit to the waterier side as for the palate, but flavour is wellfilled with roasted malts, old coffee and more roast.